School Board Meeting - October 3, 2023

001is Don coming uh no Don is um tonight she's had it Kath it goes back to Kath settling turn yes thank you ma'am well I got a rogue board member over there Kathy Jean H up this regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday October 3rd 2023 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples this meeting is being live streamed and interested members of the public are welcome and encouraged to view this meeting remotely at youtube.com isd535 tonight's meeting is also being recorded and will be posted on our YouTube channel following completion

002of the meeting the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org present at this meeting are Schoolboard members superintendent Kent pel a non-voting ex officio member and assistant Schoolboard clerk Miss Lori Sam Miss Sam would you please call the role here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the for it stands Nation indivisible andice item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I the opposed the agenda has been approved uh a note to the board and Community if we're still meeting around 7 o'clock

003we'll make a decision whether we want to take a recess at this time time there are no comments to the board this evening so we'll move on to information and Outreach item 4.1 referendum information video this is an information item superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan as you and board members are aware we have been out across the community talking about the proposal that will be on the ballot November 7th we are allowed H and in fact uh I think it's our responsibility to provide information on that proposal we don't tell people how to vote but we encourage them to vote and we want to um debut tonight for the board and the community um a short and even animated video that really encapsulates the substance of this proposal in pretty succinct fashion I will

004just say some of you may have seen um uh in the post bulletin there is a CO a column uh called a dear answerman and they actually had a question from someone always a skeptic about the referendum in today's column and I won't go into the specifics uh of that question but I was actually pleased by um the answer man's response to oh was a skeptic uh which was about our campaign uh the answerman said dear skeptic I'm surprised you even managed to submit your question before someone from the school district force fed you a 10-point presentation about the merits of the plan they've been everywhere lately superintendent Kent pel scheduled to host multiple information sessions about the proposal the district has reached out directly to the media about its plans the number of booths

005dedicated to educating the public about the referendum is near the point of rivaling Starbucks cliche of having a shop on every corner so we are trying to get the word out and with that um we will take a moment to share this video which will be available on the referendum page on the Rochester schools website um from now until November 7th Rochester Public Schools is committed to securing our District's final future over the past two years we've cut over2 million in expenses while making crucial operational decisions Now's the Time to fund technology directly and redirect general fund dollars to maintain our current class sizes on November 7th Rochester Public Schools will seek approval of a capital projects technology Levy to generate about10 million annually for a period of 10 years when we look at other

006school districts we are often compared to Rochester is well behind others when it comes to local tax support currently $7 million from our general fund is allocated for technology this Levy would allow us to reallocate those funds so we can keep class sizes at their current levels the levy would also provide an additional $3 million per year to transform the way we use technology and support our strategic plan if the referendum does not pass we will face additional cuts of up to10 million that me increased class sizes and cuts to Key Programs and services starting next school year this investment would bring transformative technology that accelerates learning supports teaching and enhances school safety for the next decade learn all you can about the upcoming referendum and don't forget to vote on or before November 7th

007who's ready to hatch is that our new mascot um board members any questions or were there any other highlights you wanted to bring up great well thanks to our Communications team for being behind uh all of the communication venues and methods that um the superintendent mentioned item 4.2 is a county update superintendent pel thank you very much and it's a honor to welcome my friend Heidi Walsh who is our um County Administrator for Olstead County um as part of our effort to collaborate increasingly closely with not just the county but the city of Rochester each of the three administrators will be going to the elected governing body of the organization to give an update on the work that we are doing and so Heidi actually is kicking us off tonight with an overview of the

008critical work they're doing at the county I will be joining the Commissioners and the city council for a similar overview of our work and Allison zelms from City will be here as well we'll be interested in board members and Commissioners and council members feedback on whether they find this to be uh useful we meet monthly and it's really an invaluable support for the work there are so many points of overlap between what um Heidi and the team at the county are doing and what we do to serve kids and families that uh I think it's important for board members to have a sense of the issues that are there and so we've actually not tried to focus each of these presentations on necessarily our collaboration but on the the main things that are of uh

009importance to our elected board and so this is our inaugural uh presentation and I'm sure uh we're gonna learn a lot so Heidi thanks for coming thank you very much um as Dr pel said my name is Heidi Welsh and I am the administrator at olid County I just give you a couple of background facts by way of introduction I've been at the county in this rule for almost seven years now believe it or not I can't believe it's been that long um I thought as I was thinking about this presentation I thought is there ever a better time to pull out your educational pedigree than when you're presenting to the school board so I I graduated from high school in Redwing not in Rochester but I have a a degree from the University of

010Wisconsin at Madison and geography I also have a a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and I have my doctorate in public administration from h so I never get to talk about my educate but it feels appropriate with the school board right um so thank you for having me tonight as you heard Dr pel say this is our our attempt to try to kind of share across our three agencies and um and we're really wanting to make it something that all of you as elected officials find useful so please give us feedback as we go along I focused this on our current work at the county and and sort of some future initiatives but I'm happy to try to answer any questions that you might have usually pointing there works better than here am

011I right Lor I haven't tried yet looks like it's ready okay so this is not I didn't do the greatest job of of secretly putting the answer on the bottom there but let's pretend you can't see the bottom yeah there's what do all these things have in common I heardly byen burying the Indigent and underground water lab and passport renewals now if you couldn't see the bottom there would you guess that these are all things that are part of County responsibility not all of them are uh mandated of course nobody says that you must have a heard of buison but the rest of those things are mandated services at the county so it's just a way of getting us into the county has a of many many responsibilities and I know lots of you have

012been involved um in the county in other ways but we are very wide uh Public Health social services and housing you you know a lot about probably through all of your work in education and the help that that you provide to kids we also do a lot in law enforcement Parks transportation land use planning of course we do elections we just heard about the referendum we're really gearing up for the next election next year but um lots of work around Recycling and waste to disposal and of course everybody's favorite property assessment and tax collection so just gives you a little bit of a a briefer of our our work olid County there are 87 counties in Minnesota we are uh we are with 100 almost 165,000 people um there are seven Commissioners on the County

013Board many of the 87 counties actually only have five Commissioners so we're one of just a handful that have seven we have about 1300 FTE our annual budget this this got completed before we finished our 2024 uh budget but we're about $350 million budget within $119 million Levy um and 125,000 preliminary Levy for next year and you see on there of course we're we're we're very focused on Rochester which is why it's kind of a nice the city the county the school district but the county also serves the whole area and that includes other counties and or sorry other cities and um 18 townships as well so one of the big news flashes maybe not so new for 2023 certainly as part of my work is that we have four that's a majority of course

014a majority of our board is new so we've done a lot of just giving you update a lot of work that has happened this year has really been bringing our board up to speed making sure that everybody has the base information all that kind of storming informing as you have a new board in place and I'm going to talk about Hot Topics a little bit feel free to to interrupt me if if um if any questions come up see the notes are showing up on the side so try to ignore that but um a lot of work you know we do a lot of work in housing and homelessness um we have an HRA sorry housing Redevelopment Authority which does most of this work for us we recently set aside and um have gone into

015an agreement with um with a seller to purchase a facility where we intend to open a housing stability Center that will expand uh the community's access to Hess Shelter but it will also provide it's something in the neighbor of 80 um single room occupy kind of um facility so the idea is not just to have a shelter but to help people transition into um other housing more stable facilities um and of course this winter will continue with the shelter that is downtown the warming facility that's right across from Government Center until we have that new facility all up and running so lots of work around housing that's just a little piece but we do a lot around housing we do a lot around soil and water protection here's one that probably you don't hear about

016quite as much um there were $3 million of the money that came out of Co the American Rescue act um money that the county received we received 31 million all together three million of it the board set aside for uh soil and water protection and it's really turned out to be a marvelous program really takes the risk out of planting things that remove nitrates out of the soil so that we don't get it into the groundwater it's really been um a very successful program and we're looking forward to that expanding as we continue on a lot of work's going on around energy Park I don't know if everybody knows exactly where that is but it's um out Campus Drive so out sort of north of rctc and next to the the County Campus there there

017are about 80 acres that looks like well looks like a cornfield but it's actually a soil Health FM anyway and part of that is um has been set aside it's got tunnels underneath it that bring Steam from the waste to energy facility so it's actually um for many many years been thought of as an expansion for energy Park what shall we do with that what shall we dream about that and now is the time that the board is starting to think about where do we go next so um on the right yes on the right there you'll see a picture of the was to energ facility where all of the municipal garbage from the county flows and then it's burned and turned into steam and electricity and the steam Heats and cools various buildings the

018picture on the left is a municipal uh sorry a materials recovery facility I I I just love this project it's like cleaning the waste if you will it cleans the it takes more recycling out of the waste Stream So that we we not only recover um materials but also we are reducing how much we need to burn and therefore elongating the life of those very expensive burners so there's been a lot of thinking this board has a lot of energy around um this County Board has a lot of energy I shouldn't use the word the energy there we go um it uses they're they're really thinking a lot about what's next so should we be doing more carbon capture on what's going up that stack which isn't very much but should we be thinking about

019that should we be thinking about biochar should we be thinking about um Organics and what to do next in that um in that Arena so lots of work going on there that I I think is fascinating of course mental health and here's an area that I know we partner well on and um Dr pqu and I even just very recently had a conversation about how can we do what can we do even better what do we need to do to back up and think about what do schools need most uh when you think about the resources that the county is um is partnering and what do we do most and I think we're in in pretty strong agreement that there's a lot of need around mental health and we want to do whatever we can

020to to try to help um you know we've seen not just an increase in schools but there's a just a huge increase in mental health not just the number of people I don't know maybe you're seeing this in schools too but it's the complex of each one of those cases that is really I mean it's unbelievable the need so a lot of work going on in our adult and mental health a lot of staff that have been added in this new uh this new budget cycle we've done a lot of work partnering uh mental health workers with law enforcement so that they go out when a 911 call um comes in and it's really a mental health call we're hoping that we have we try to have AAL mental health worker there instead of law

021enforcement or with law enforcement well that's a great thing however it's also turning up many many people that weren't we weren't aware of in the system so now that's more people coming in the front door of adult mental health so lots of work going on there um let's see you can kind of read the notes there are lots just a lot happening I talked a little bit about the Outreach workers with law enforcement this has been really a a highly success u f program we now have um five but we're adding four more people to this so so that we will have a 247 operation and be able to have a mental health responder along with any whether it's Rochester Police orad Sheriff when there's some kind of mental health involved with the 911 call

022somebody will be able to respond along with law enforcement so really again as I said very successful at diverting people from the jail people who shouldn't be in the jail people who really you know it's mental health it's a mental health thing that they need they need treatment or maybe they need the emergency room or maybe they need the crisis center um it's been very successful at getting people to the right spot but it also puts pressure on okay and now we need more followup Services let's see I guess that then I'm going to talk a little bit about topics on on the horizon I could talk all day about what what's happening today but here's a few more for you mental health care for the Youth of course this is what I I just

023touched on but try to find what is the appropriate level of care trying to find facilities outside you probably you probably know about this just as well as the county does but it's hard to find the appropriate facilities that aren't you know we end up with kids sometimes in Denver or in Florida and that's not great we really wish it wasn't that way but we the appropriate facilities aren't always here in Minnesota so we're working on uh that I I think as a state we're working on that but we're certainly um dedicated to it here in the county as well uh let's see we're working on a cohart to measure the sounds like we're working together the Department of Health and the Department of Education working to measure and improve School mental health system so

024that is probably not a surprise any of you and then we're also doing some suicide prevention work for Youth Sports environment lots of work happening there lots of increased needs for public assistance um boy oh boy ever since the pandemic you know it just we had a a dramatic increase in the number of people who needed um all kinds of services whether it is cash and food assistance or whether it's health care assistance dramatic increases and it has not gone down this is the thing we all thought during the pandemic well it's temporary it's going to go back down well you know this will just hang on we'll get through this bubble it has not gone down um and you've heard probably the phrase unwinding the pandemic perhaps you've heard that um and we are

025working on that so um especially around Healthcare but it's slowo and and um it's there's not an end in sight I guess is what I had to say about that tons of work around the opioid crisis uh this is none of this is news to you either uh that um it's just unfortunate how many fatalities how many incidents we have in our community and trying to to face that and find ways through that we have um received settlement funds of course and we are using that we're applying that to those mental health workers and they're really behavioral mental health workers that that are riding with the law enforcement that's how we are using the bulk of those funds right now cannabis another one of our favorite topics cannabis response so uh as you can imagine

026I'm sure you're thinking about it it's the school district too but lots of work going on to think about what does all this mean for the county what does it mean in terms of a public use ordinance um there are smaller things like what does it mean for our employees uh how do what do we do in terms of Public Health we want to educate people still to dangers that exist with cannabis so a lot of um effort and discussions are happening around cannabis response everybody recognize the corn Tower our favorite corn Tower there the Sena used to be owned by Sena property and Grand Park which some of you may uh know as the county fairgrounds this is actually a a county park property that we have been in the process of redeveloping cleaning

027up making more useful to the community for oh my gosh it's been a probably a decade now uh and we did receive some legislative funds to build an Exhibition Center so we're busy working on that but there also are still continued thoughts about and what do we do with this senica property so stay tuned for more discussion about that working on an open space plan which I'm very excited about something the county has it's not an unusual thing for a county to have an open space plan but we never have had one so working to try to think through what do we need to preserve now as Rochester continues to grow and the communities surrounding Rochester continue to grow what does that mean about Trails maybe it's just corridors some counties think of um Trails

028as linear Parks as part of their open space plan so um you'll see work going on there and I hope that we are better coordinated with the city of Rochester's parks and a DNR after this as we think about all these open space pieces oh boy election security is such a big topic I kind of talked about this at the beginning you you are well aware of how how rough elections were how um forign our communities be came uh around elections and of course next year's going to be another presidential election so we are very focused on making sure everything is secure that we have done everything um absolutely accurately that we have all um everything in place and ready to go so lots of work happening there Co still I had a chance to

029talk to Amy right before the meeting there and she was y yep here to say it still happens yep um and we're still monitoring it's still happening it's still going on so we're still doing a lot of work in public health around coid um along with all the other work that happens in public health every day we uh I think that you probably are aware that the the board asked our Public Health Advisory Board and our human um Human Rights Commission to partner together to to take a look at and provide some recommendations about how do we tackle racism as a public health issue that um that report was completed a little more than a year ago and we are now moving into all right now we need to implement some of these recommendations so

030you'll see a lot of work going on around that topic at the county this year and Beyond work is going on to law enforcement training facilities you you may hear about that a big um indoor space for law enforcement training is in under construction actually out um in the South part of town by the regional Public Safety Training Center we're still focus on this darn interchange anybody that's driven to by Ron well now this is the old picture the menot actually closed they made J terms there so you can't cross right there but we did receive $60 million uh from the state from one of the mindat um funding mechanisms and and um several million other dollars from the federal and uh State sources so we are going to be building an interchange at this

031site which will really improve safety as a lot of fatal a lot of fatalities have happened at this particular spot on Highway 14 uh let's see this is still just showing the map of the same lots of work going on on this Corridor but also showing you that intersection we're going on in our Parks hopefully people have gotten out to see the new Oxo Nature Center it's really it's really fun we were out there just yesterday the board was out there and it's come a long way if you haven't been out there yet do go out it's so fun to see the kids interacting and hopefully many of the kids in the schools we'll be able to take advantage of that in addition to that Park it's really kind of a jewel our system but

032we have other parks in the system in Lake zro is another one where we are actively working to try to expand the offerings that exist up at that Park so you'll see some of that this next year and then finally we have a new strategic plan Hallelujah I know you've been through this recently too it takes such a lot of effort so important and it's so the process is valuable but it's exhausting isn't it so we're very happy we've been at it for about a year and a happen we're just about done so you will see that in early 2024 and I think that's it so I'm happy to try to answer any questions but I also uh understand that you're busy board members anybody want to start with any questions I want to ask

033a question about the mental on the mental health slide in your um written notes you talked about the um expansion of the mental health first aid classes in 2024 and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that how accessible that'll be to the community and if there might be um the version of it that's the youth Mental Health First a and not the I know there's an adult but there's also youth we've had some youth approach us and some some parents approach us to say that that would be a an offering they'd be they'd be interested in because of their work with the kids well we are we have done quite a bit of it inside the county and I know we're planning to do more but I love your

034idea of why not expand that to the kids we do have people that are trained at the county to give this so I will take that back as opposed to giving you a great answer I'll take that back as a hey couldn't we do this and see if we can't make that happen because what a great idea to train parents and kids love it good I'm glad I'm glad you're expanding it it's a great program so superintendent are are we seeing um the same difficulty a lot of places around the country are seeing with um retaining election workers um in hestad County because it's it's not a partisan thing to say they are the people who make democracy work and do we know yet I mean we're still a ways out yeah Madam chair Dr

035pel we I would say that we have been pretty lucky here in Al County we have a really strong team of election workers that are permanent and it was a few years ago I I mean I'd like to say it was completely forethought but I think it was just a little bit of luck that we changed from more um looking at part-time workers many many many many part-time workers we changed to a strategy where we actually have six or seven full-time staff in elections I mean they're they year in and year out whether there's an election so that um that really helps us because we have that kind of stability then we also have many part-time um temporary workers that we bring on we haven't had any trouble yet so let's um let's all keep

036our fingers crossed but so far so good and we are just in the process now I think you probably know this the the workers that are being hired now for this for the election on the referendum will stay on with us some of them will stay on with us through next year make it a didn't make sense to you know all right you're here for a couple months and then we'll want you back in January so we're trying to do everything we can to make that enticing and appealing to keep people people so far so good good and I think board members may be aware of this but um the initiation of the direct conversations between the superintendent and um the county and the city administrators I you know is an important addition but I've

037been really grateful for um your work and um the members of your team on some of the Community Education initiatives like cradle the career um and other conversations between um the Departments of the county and their counterparts here at at RPS um you know we talked about Community Schools this morning with the um lieutenant governor and the fact that we cannot do it alone and um the support that I I know that you've been providing and your staff has been providing has been ongoing and I I love that you're you're able to come here and tell your story and and that we'll just continue this partnership going forward thank you very much yeah we feel the same way it's been a joy to be able to work with Dr pel and I know my whole

038team feels that way about all the members of your team whether it's I should add you know there's lots of things about the kids directly the mental health pieces you know we have public health pieces but we also partner in other ways I'm thinking of the circle the traffic circle which I happen to live right behind so I'm very aware of but what a beautiful um partnership among the three agencies really and it's it's it's those kind of things that make this community special thank you thank you so much thanks for coming thank you thank you our next agenda item is 4.3 the RPS website presentation superintendent Fel thank you chair Nathan I would like to ask Mamu kutson who's our director of communications to come up we um flipped the website in August and

039we know that there is much work yet to be done but there are some fundamental differences in the structure and the look of the website I want to thank MSU for the leadership that she has provided for us on this effort and many many others um she has been in drinking from a fire hose since she started this job um and has still managed even in the midst of handling complex Communications on things like um a cyber security event that made national news to put together a project like this that would have risked falling off and I'm glad to say didn't so we want to give you and others watching a brief look at our new website so thank you momson yeah thank you hello everyone um so I when I started in my position

040a little over a year ago um I was informed that one of the upcoming projects would be a complete redesign of all of our websites and when I say website I'm not just talking about the district website we're looking at every single School website as well so we dug into the need of we dug into the need we learned after talking um receiving feedback that um our old content management system which I'll refer to as cm Ms um was not user friendly at all for our staff um schools also wanted ownership over the content on their websites and we needed a new CMS that was easy to navigate and easy to update so we started uh with Gathering more feedback we sent surveys out to staff to students to families um to learn about how

041our current CMS was serving them was it serving them was it good was it not um and then also asking them what they desire to see in a new website we also had onetoone meetings and smaller group meetings with key stakeholders for their input um and then we hosted virtual and inperson listening sessions for staff for families and for members of the community to attend and give us their feedback so the feedback we receive from parents and students they they wanted a One-Stop shop somewhere where they can get all of the information in one place um they wanted something that was easy to navigate and easy to find information on um and then from parents who have students in multiple grade levels they wanted to have consistent navigation um so despite going to say you

042know Churchill or John Adams they could know where to go for the same information lunch menu calendar um start times Etc and then I was very um very opposed to an app at the beginning um because I was like it's another thing that I have to update so I don't really want it but parents were like can we get an app we I went to a school that had an app or you know in our former District we had this and it was very handy Etc so we put that into we threw that into um the RFP as well the feedback we receiv received from the staff the old CMS was difficult to use this was resoundingly the same message across um this is L this led to fewer edits being made on the website

043so a lot of the content was outdated um there was a rapid increase in Google sites being created and shared with uh School level information so not only were teachers creating Google sites for their classrooms but the school was creating Google sites for the the school because it was easier to um to manage to edit so then we had the school website and then we had a Google site um that was coexisting parents were being sent to many different places for information um but the problem was that Google sites weren't necessarily uh branded um they didn't have cohesive Vision or messaging um and then um some of the information could be updated to if there was multiple we also found that there was a tension or a struggle between District level communication my team trying

044to serve all the school teams and again it was the CMS was old the CMS is hard to use why can't you update this for me um and then we were like well we have all these things so we'll get to it in a week but in a week it's irrelevance so that was the attenion we were finding there after Gathering all of our feedback we sent out a request for proposal uh we had 10 vendors respond to our RFP uh the interview group as we uh met with these vendors consisted of myself Amy Ike um t Tanner Sorenson Cassie giling on my team and then Mike Johnson the director of it we interviewed two vendors that closely aligned to what we were requesting on our RFP and we chose one that offered pretty much

045everything um we were looking for and that that uh vendor was apto um we were uh completely impressed with their presentation other vendors sent like paper copies they sent us an iPad with the team saying hey I'm this person I'm going to be working with you on this um this is where you can this is what you can do with the website Etc um their platform offered something that was Modern uh fresh design they focused on accessibility compliance which I'll talk more about in a little bit here they offered um 103 translations uh languages to be able to be translated into um their platform was easy to use and then it would allow us to have consistent branding uh throughout the entire District but allows schools to have their own uniqueness show through as well

046another thing um that they offered was is something called cope which is create once and post everywhere um if you've ever worked with websites the current system we had or the system we had was if we wanted to post to Facebook we're posting to Facebook then you're logging into Twitter and then you're logging into Instagram you're logging into the website you're logging into Sky alert so like if you think of an inclement weather day and those bright and early 5:30 morning meetings we have it was me going to Facebook to Twitter to in Instagram to the website to school Messenger to call to text all the parents and send that information out so apto has what's called cope so we really liked that um it was really easy to edit the pages you just click

047and drag you can create the pages however you want them to be created they offered client support so um during the workday if I'm a web content manager I have a question I can chat and then there they show this consistently throughout the presentation within 30 seconds we had someone responding to us answering our question and then they also offer unlimited training so if we had a new staff member come on and they're taking care of a school's website they're the new web content manager they can have one-on-one training with aptg to learn the whole new system um and working with a small Communications team this was very appealing to us because we would didn't have to take as much time to dedicate to training with them we could help them along the way but

048AP would provide that and then the last and final thing that they offered was this mobile app um that they sold me on so um they were also willing to work with our timeline we had a very very aggressive timeline uh to launch we wanted to launch before the start of the school year and I'll talk a little bit more about them so after we chose appu we started uh by creating a web content managers group um we asked school and department leaders to recommend one to two people uh who would oversee the school website or the department portion of the district website and then we started with training our Communications team uh on the new CMS um and we gave web content managers time to review the content on their old website uh take

049a critical eye and look at does this content need to be migrated over or is it outdated is it inaccurate can we combine Pages Etc and then there from their decision those are the pages we would migrate over to the new site and then we started content migration and we hosted um training for the web content managers we had a virtual one before the end of the last school year and then we had aptg flew in to train us in person before the start of the school year so we launched the website the new websites um on August 18th uh we have a district website we have 27 school websites including RPS online uh RPS preschools and RPS programs are the new ones um we have uh the Community Education website and the referendum website

050which is also new with the referendum this year and then we have our brand new mobile app I want to show you guys a little bit of the homepage uh distinctions between the district site and the school sites so on the district site we opted to differentiate it from the schools we have a full gallery image across the top um and then as you can see you'll see icons across right after right under the gallery images and icons were chosen um by looking at statistics so which Pages were most visited on the old site those we created and made into icons and then across the top right you will see portals and it's very small font but I if you go on you'll see it um portals for staff student uh students and families so

051those have things like class link um forms that you'll need Etc on the school and the Community Education sites to differentiate them from the district the gallery is only about 2third of an image and then they have the contact information right there so parents don't have to uh scroll to find you know the school office office uh hours the school start times and the contact information again schools do have the icons so this was also these this is the same throughout every single school so you have menus calendars uh staff directory class link I'm sorry I can't read it my it's there um and then the portals are again across all of the sites so student staff and families have portals there for the information that they need and we also branded each School each

052school's website to their branding guide so this is John Adams their colors are red and black yellow so we use that throughout each of the sites um we also have a portion on each website called a live feed um this is where uh if someone were if a web content manager were to go on the platform on CMS and they wanted to post something it would post to the live feed which is also on the website which is on the web web and then it'll also post to all socials so for families or parents or caregivers who don't use social media this is where we're training our web content managers to post the information as well so as you can see John Marshall had um some dress up days where they just posted photos um

053on there for events and news the district site has typically fewer events so we opted for the circles for the events and then the news in a three column right below it um for the school and community educ ation sites they typically have more events so we opted for the side by side option where events are listed on the left um news are listed on the right and then we also have as is with many news or many new websites if you go to the events you click on it um it can add it directly to your personal calendar if you choose to do that um and then a thing that schools can do is called Spotlight so you have a student you want to highlight a student group a staff a program Etc you

054can come in um and write a small blur about that put a photo up and then this will be spotlighted on your homepage until you change it out we're asking web content managers to update this at least once a month with uh whatever is happening around their school so if it's you know a new artwork or whatever they want to Spotlight there they have that option so let's talk to statistics the timeline it took us approximately nine months to finish this from the idea to the launch um I called a lot of other districts before we start when we started this um and they said typically it took them about 18 months um average timeline for website redesign is one to two years and we did it in nine months I want to commend my

055team especially Cassie giling uh for taking this on she spearheaded the project worked with the stakeholders web content managers made sure the content that was being migrated uh was accurate uh is still training web content managers when they reach out with questions so I just want to thank her for that and um um thank her for all the work that she did there we have 120 web content managers across the district making updates to their respective sites uh we also want to thank the web content managers because this is not a paid position for them they are completely volunteering um to do this and they are passionate about having you know correct information um relevant information on their website um and we know it's a lot of work and it's a learning curve um so

056we're grateful for the work that they're doing we have 725 Pages across all of our sites which is down from 4,000 pages so again when web content managers went through this they did a huge they had a huge undertaking um because they were you know cutting down things that didn't need to be there outdated information so 725 though down from 4,000 is still a lot um and to put it into perspective Cassie's job I think is like3 website so that managing all that is is a lot too since the launch of the website on August 18th we have we've had 33,000 visits um and then as far as far as our mobile app downloads uh 2,660 on Apple this is statistics from last week um Android 1040 and there's a little QR code so those

057of you in the audience who want to download you can that'd be great um next steps in moving forward we are implementing the next phases after the launch uh it's more behind the scenes work um one feature that we had when we launched the website was a contact me card so we have a staff member your photo would pop up and then someone could click and then they could call or they could email you um we've had a little bit of uh a little bit of problems with that um so we have we're working with tech right now we've pulled it back we're going to revamp it and then hoping to launch it um sometime in the spring um with a new method on there uh we're also doing things like ensuring that redirects are

058working or if there are short links existing somewhere in the world and someone says this no longer works just making sure it relinks to the to the correct Place uh we're training non web content managers on the social media aspect of the website excuse me so web content managers are the ones who oversee the website we have social media managers who post on social media so now we're again we're moving to that cope method where they're all posting through the website versus posting on Facebook we're supporting web content managers with the learning curve uh I mentioned accessibility uh it is a legal requirement that we as a school district make all of our content accessible to the best extent possible so that means putting things like alt text on images um making sure color contrast

059is working hyperlinks are correct Etc so it's it is a learning curve it is hard for a lot of people um so we're working with them to do that um and then pointing them back to just uh using thrill share to post versus socials um and then we're working with schools to improve their communication through the website so uh We've deleted all the school level Google sites and directing families to the school the one official School schol website for all the information which means then that all the rest of the information needs to be put on the website for that so that was probably Fast and Furious um but that's a little bit about this huge project um that's been keeping my team busy so board members any questions Dr Cook um how is content

060moderation handled for our district sites or or what what if there was ever an occasion where um something was was posted either I don't know in any channel how how would that ever get reviewed or caught or addressed so aptg offers a um like approval process so we have the web content managers those have been those have been appointed by school principls so that means School principles trust them to make sure that information is accurate should they need to add more people we can give them lower level access so they post something it has to be approved by a principal or an office manager whoever the web content manager before it goes live so there is that extra stop to make sure things are accurate um my team also has oversight of everything and whether

061or not we want to we receive notifications about everything so um we do check those notifications if especially something is like garnering a lot of attention we usually go in and make sure it's appropriate um and other than the that that that makes sense um other than the the raw numbers do we know anything about how the site is being used or the the type of traffic we're seeing is it um I did not numbers I did not pull those numbers but I can and send that over um we do Cassie pulled some numbers I think with like the icons and those are being utilized the family portals or the portals are a little bit harder for people because I'm trying to think of the example that was there was something where they're like I

062can't find it and we said we put it in the family portal but of course it didn't didn't exist before so people aren't used to going to the family portal so redirecting them um I think the portals are a little bit harder but the icons I think initially pulled about two weeks out it was can you talk a little bit about the translation um functions available on the website and on the app yep so the app if your phone is set to French um when you download the app the app will show up in French you also have the option if your phone is set to English and you want to change it you're like doing dual lingo or something when to learning you language you can select that language and it'll translate everything into

063that um the website has that option we have uh like I said 103 languages that you can go in and any content that's put on the website so not as an attachment so like if I were to upload a PDF that won't be translated but um if I put content onto the web page itself it'll be translated into the language that you choose so that's part of the accessibility training we're also teaching is that yes we can upload a PDF because it's easy but the PDF has to be be accessible and we have to consider that if we can pull the content and put it directly on the page it's easier for families to access that way and I also think you mentioned about the live feed and I I just want to make sure

064I heard you correctly because I think it's really important that our social media feeds are appearing on that live feed so if a family isn't on Facebook or Twitter they can see what our it's it's coming from our official District yep feeds yep so if you go on the website it's I think the third item down but if you have the app um you can select which schools you want to get content from so if you choose whatever School your child's at you'll get their live feed um or you can select all 27 schools and then get their information as well so you control the information that's being pushed to you on the app and all of our schools have uh social media presence and are posting correct some of the schools have newer social

065media presences so um but anything they're posting on their uh social should be showing up in the live YouTube super thank you thank you well done thanks for your work and to your [Applause] team item 4.4 recognitions uh director Workman yesterday October 2nd was National custodian day here in Rochester Public Schools the work of our custodial staff is vital in ensuring that students and staff have safe clean and healthy spaces to learn and work our buildings represent a significant investment on the part of the public that must be kept clean and in good repair custodians are responsible for the daily care and safe operation of all facilities and buildings on a yearr round basis and anyone who has been in one of our district buildings knows that custodial staff are a big part of creating

066a positive atmosphere in every one of them our custodians care about our staff and our students they are always there to reach out with a helping hand and are often the go-to person for members of our Rochester Community who use our buildings before or after school hours the next time you are in a school or a district building and see a member of our RPS custodial staff make sure you stop to thank them for everything that they do thank you um we also want to um remind people that the district will celebrate indigenous people's day next Monday October 9th Minnesota statute asks that part of the school day be devoted to observance of indigenous people's day and our office of academics and office of equity and engagement have shared a number of resources with staff

067to be used in our classrooms and schools we're looking forward to hearing on October 17th at the board meeting um what experiences our students had on indigenous people's day item 4.5 board member committee updates does any board member have updates from their committees Dr Marvin and speaking of students we have uh five students here and as they come up and sit at this table um they're going to give you a report on what our student school board has been uh doing we met for the first time last month these are represent is from all of our high schools uh who meet with Mr ruffen and um uh Miss Sarah Lise Henry and um I and me um and are amazing young people and um they have volunteered to come and give you a defil in

068on what happened at our first meeting so if you would as you speak if you'd introduce yourself please hi I'm high school and I just say good evening welcome um thank you for listening to us today and so today as representatives of the student School Board to provide an overview of our role and why we are important to the board in District the student School Board is a group of students committed to elevating deeper learning districtwide um meet regularly to discuss um and solve issues and also it's really nice to um just come together as like all the different schools and just to see like the SAR problems and like also like just to celebrate some our amazing things going on like I could go on on we have toze um as well as like

069share ideas between like all districts yeah um as student school board members and your name is oh sorry Jack my name is Jack um I'm at Mayo High School um as student school board members we bring the valuable perspectives and voices of students that can't become a part of the student School Board we plan to collaborate with building administrators and students to make our schools better our future meetings will have an agenda set by student leaders from each school they will collaborate to create a plan of action for each student scho school board meeting and then we'll direct that meeting based upon that I'm Lily lerno I'm a freshman at Mayo high school and um our student leaders that are chosen at the end of the meeting so they can prepare to lead their next

070meeting and schools can have one or two students leaders and can decide to like rotate through their leaders through everyone in the group so everyone has a chance to lead or just have one or two consistent leaders that will be representing their school every Meeting those student leaders from different schools will work together to determine the focus topic for the next meeting in advance they'll then share the meeting information agenda with all members about a week before additionally at the meetings the student leaders will be leading the discussions and instructing their peers um my name is kiny Ali and I'm a sophomore at M High School um we are committed to ensuring diversity equity and inclusion sorry in our discussions and decision making we believe that all students regardless of their backgrounds deserve to have

071their voices and perspectives considered we will bring at we will bring in as many perspectives as we can knowing that not all students have the opportunity or resources to be a part of student School Board I'm s I'm sron oi and I go to John Marshall and I'm a sophomore by actively engaging with our building administrators and fellow students we aim to create an inclusive and supportive environment where everyone feels valued and represented together we will continue to work towards making our schools a place where every student can thrive in conclusion as student School board members we bring the unique and valuable perspectives and voices of students to the board we have created the format we will be implementing to run these meetings this year and plan to collaborate with building admins and students to

072ensure equity and diversity in our discussions thank you for your support as we work towards making our schools the best they can be thank you so [Applause] much [Applause] thank you for leading that director M our next item is our consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.7 would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda anying discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed the consent agenda has been approved our next item is a focus topic 6.1 John Adams Middle School continuous improvement process skip update superintendent thank you chair Nathan I see the ja team coming up come on up uh fill in as however it uh is going to fit um as chair

073Nathan mentioned a number of us were out today at John Adams with lieutenant governor Peggy Flanigan um she was in town to speak at a United w Gathering and wanted to visit a school and Ja came to mind immediately not just because it's one of our community schools but just because of the extraordinary work that all of you are doing there and so uh this is uh one of the final remaining School Improvement plan updates as we finish this fall uh hearing from all of our schools about their Improvement priorities so it's a pleasure to welcome superintendent Gates here superintendent I just promoted all right That was supposed to be clap so loud cuz you're getting me a principal Brandt Gates and the the really amazing team it the the vibe at John Adams is

074just always so positive and that doesn't happen by accident so we're grateful for your work and we're eager to hear about uh your plans for the future thanks everybody thanks Dr pel thanks thanks uh chair Nathan school board members director appreciate you having us and I would like to start with introductions my my name is BR Gates the principal in that order I'm Da debolt I'm a sixth grade language arts teacher Melanie KES Kenova and I'm instructional coach Jen Williams and I'm the reading interventionist H Patty whan one of the assistant principles Ramona Norwood Equity specialist my name is Lance do I'm a Student Success coach and Isaac maik one of the assistant principls all right so we will start with our first goal the first goal is to increase our the students uh who

075meet criteria for on track in reading on the fast brige assessment by 3.5 percentage points and this last fall we were at uh for the school 42% on track so I'll go through those grade levels and um those that were on track and also low risk to meet the benchmark so the first slide if you can see it um I tried to zoom in as much as possible so we're 75% on track and low risk in the area of math and then 71% on track and low risk in the area of reading then for seventh grade 65% on track and low risk reading is 72% on track on track and low risk in eth grade 60% on track and low risk and then 68% on track and low risk in the area of breeding so

076what we will um then pass it on to uh Miss wh uh so in initiative one focuses on our teaming structures for the mtss goal and we have four uh teams that we're working with to help accomplish this initiative um our first team is of course our mtss team itself um this is a group of of Staff members that have been pulled from our leadership team uh it includes uh Jen and myself um we have an art teacher who has a uh reading background so we invited her to be part of our team as well as special ed and um ml teachers um our second group is our student services team we really believe at John Adams that we need to have a well-rounded picture of our student so all of our interventions um do

077go through our intervention or our student services team um that is a team of counselors social workers housing Specialists um Equity specialist success coach so when we have a student who's struggling academically we can also find out if they are struggling with uh homelessness or are in need of additional resources that our community schoolroom can assist with um if they're if they're struggling with behavior issues issues as well um so that we can develop interventions not just for the academic people but for all of the areas in which they may be needing assistance uh our sixth grade team um da and her co-art Co um co-art does that sound right like co-art coart uh in language arts um along with several other teachers are participating in the fast for Success professional development um that is

078happening uh K through six um as well as Jen's part part of that team and then we're also inviting um and I'll talk a little bit more about that for initiative three but we're also inviting our ml special ed and then seventh and eth grade um teachers to participate in the data piece of that um and then finally we are have a concerted effort on strengthening our plc's um plc's have been more like department meetings in the past and so we are really um putting a an effort on making sure that they are working with data that they are datadriven um and so that we are um doing what's best for our students in that area um in this past year we were able to allocate funds to actually have an intervention teacher and so

079I'm going to turn it over to Jen um who's going to talk a little bit more about initiative too so I know um some of you when you came to John Adams this morning um got to see our literacy lab and so we are super happy um that we were able to create a literacy lab um which I like to think of and I think we all do a safe reading space for all of our students that do not read at grade level um we were able to repurpose all of our earo books um we reorganized them so they are now B Exile level which goes along with fastbridge um so we now have books to support all of our students at every level so students can come into the literacy lab grab books they

080don't have to check them out um so it's an honor System but they can also come in and receive any kind of support for reading that they need and and we are currently using fastbridge data to identify our atrisk students um collaborate with grade level teams during our plc's and then we are creating small groups to begin reading interventions excuse me with initiative three it talks uh it really focuses on the fast Bridge assessment data um we uh just met or we just went through our professional development on how to do our first data meeting so that's coming up next week um we have again invited ml special ed and seventh and eth grade to participate so that they can walk through that process with their students as well um we are very pleased to

081find that um sixth and seventh grade two of the three components that they look at um phonic awareness phonics and general reading sixth and seventh grade two in two of the three areas we met the 70% threshold and so um we have an OnTrack plan to um initiate in core instruction um at sixth and seventh grade uh our eighth grade was just a little bit lower um we just missed that second component by just a couple percentage points um and so we have one of three um and so they do have an intervention plan for core instruction um at the eth grade level um again the PLC piece uh we have invited um a speaker from first educational resources to come on November 22nd to our p day to really help us um structure and

082rework our plc's so that they are the most effective that they can be okay and our next uh skip goal is in the area of deeper learning and again we want 85% of participants on the deeper learning teams in RPS schools and programs to report on the survey that they understand the three elements elements of deeper learning which are Mastery identity and creativity so I will hand it over to Melanie and D all right thank you and so I'm Melanie and I'm also our deeper learning Champion coordinator facilitator what we're calling it so I'll tell you a little bit about our team um we have an 8% team consisting of general education special special education and ml teacher um health and music and so I'm really excited because we have a wide representation within that

083group and we're also um we also have teachers from all grade levels and so it's a pretty strong team um we are in our initial stages of learning and planning our first meeting is actually tomorrow afternoon so um we we're going to talk a little bit about our budget what we plan on doing with the money um how we plan on learning looking at things like book studies and professional development opportunities um conferences things like that um inviting speakers for our PD days and then we're also going to chat a little bit about how we want to do instructional rounds this year so um in the past John Adams has done three sets of instructional rounds where teachers go see teachers teach which is honestly probably the favorite parts of my job is to get

084to do that part um and this year we're keeping with that three um sets of instructional rounds and we notice that there are three branches on the deeper Learning Tree and so we're going to theme each one of those uh rounds for each branch of the tree um we are getting a little bit creative this year because previously we did instructional rounds during that daytime PLC time and now that the middle school schedule has changed we've surveyed teachers to see you know what they want that to look like this year since we can no longer do it during that time um um but we're planning on um chatting about that tomorrow and then with our building leadership team next week and then having a plan up and running once you come back from Nea pass

085it over to Da who's going to share a little bit more about plc's and um how we share out to staff um so initially at our September staff meeting we did share the deeper learning Basics we shared the graphic with our staff of the tree um and then we gathered Baseline data from our staff on where they were feeling they were at with their knowledge their understanding and their comfort level of at this Point like if we said hey go implement this where would your comfort level be um and they rated themselves fairly High which is pretty exciting because it makes it feel like we're able to jump in pretty quickly with deeper learning um we'll continue sharing our learning um from the deeper learning team with our staff at our monthly staff meetings and

086we're super excited like Patty said to have um the first education PLC Center coming in to train our entire staff on plc's um and get those focused back to data instead of having them be department meetings um so so we'll have that on our November 22nd staff day or PD day which will be um great to have everybody on the same page there as we move forward with uh staff members that a lot of new staff members and changing the structure of our plc's um our team also has a goal of putting together some lessons for our staff to share with our students during our home room time in the morning so we can kind of pull students in on the deeper learning initiative so it's not all just like teachers doing stuff in the

087background but so that kids really know what it is that we're trying to um serve them with and to help them be a part of the learning since they're the ones that we want to have learning so all right um yeah so first of all thank you guys that came to John Adams today continue to do that we love seeing you guys there um as I said I'm the Student Success coach at John Adams um and as you can see on that list we've got a lot of things going on a lot of people wearing different hats um my role changes dayto day and student to student I mean kind of you know I I wrote down some notes but I think we're we kind of take the Pulse of who needs more today um

088whether there's special education or not and we kind of all as a group decide who needs to do what today we kind of get a pulse of those kids where we check in with them and you know this week might be different at home or something different's happening in at school and we go we got a great team and I'm really really lucky to be thereon I know there's only minutes good evening at first I was a little nervous like oh that's a lot but it's not enough for what I want to say to you but um as the equity specialist one of the things that I do specialize in is working with our restorative circles which is a very um a very effective program with our students at John Adams and we have the

089opportunity and getting referrals I get referrals from the admin from teachers are work along with Lance the success uh success team and we meet with our students and trying to restore their relationships to build their relationships to communicate and to resolve the conflicts that they have on a daily basis weekly basis sometime monthly basis it depends on how long it last even from the previous school year here bringing it back but with our restor to circles uh there are seven guidelines we quickly that we make sure that the children follow and that is look they like what you know yes you can't go back and talk to other classmate about what's going on so um restor of the circle has been very good working at John Adams and I just want to throw this out

090we're starting another component and working with our students and that's with story circles so we're we're going to be proac PR this year where the teachers and the students get a chance to have topic questions where they get to share and build that relationship at the beginning of the school year so that teacher doesn't have to fight with that student or battle with that student towards the end of the year and once the students get a chance to listen to the teachers sharing their story you'll be surprised how they begin to build that relationship with all right I get to kind of close out here there's two slides here that really uh focus on our staff and they're from Panorama data and it just kind of really emphasizes the strength of the staff at John

091Adams the first slide uh shows that our staff is kind of above the average and how they answered favorably um in comparison to the district and and the last slide kind of shows us and on how we compare favorably across p Pama in the Across the Nation on how they've everybody's answered these questions and I think um you know I I posted on our website going back to Mamu an article um because we need our goal is to post one weekly on the news and I just kind of praised our staff and and everybody here and kind of bounced it off a male clinics mission of putting the needs of the patient first and I said you know what we're going to substitute that the the word patient with students and that's exactly what our

092staff does is put the needs of the student first whatever it takes they do and and you know Dr pel mentioned when when you show up at John Adams you can just kind of feel it and and I don't know how you put that into Data um you know it's more qualitative than quantitative but I think you can feel it I think when you walk down the hallways during passing time almost every teacher is out in the hallway greeting students and and doing just whatever it takes if we have staff missing a day you can see people joining in the lunchroom with extra supervision helping out and it's just it's just a great place to work and I think all of us here and I think I can speak for the staff that are back

093at John Adams that we just put the needs of the students first and that's and that's what we focus on and and when we do that it makes a big difference so um with that I think we can open it up for questions or comments board members Dr mvin just a comment it's always fun to go into schools and just listen to kids and uh you may know that middle school kids um aren't shy about giving their opinion so it was really fun this morning when we were just listening to them and you know how are things going and John Adams kids love your school and they superintendent Gates I mean principal um they think you rock they love their teachers they mentioned you by name and so whatever you're doing keep doing it because

094it's such a POS as you said it's really positive energy over there so thank you for that it was fun Dr work I have a number of questions and there're all related so one of the things that I noticed was that there's a kind of a slide from sixth grade to seventh grade to eth grade and I understand that those are different cohorts of students so would it be safe for me to assume that you will also be taking that same c-port of students from one year to the next to get a more accurate uh feel for for how they're doing as a group that was actually okay so we will actually at this called with okay and then um so will there be data analysis from the fast bridge to ensure that students don't

095lose ground from the fall to the spring or um from one year to the next I'm assuming that's that's part that's part of the core instruction plan okay so that that the students who are at on track or low risk continue to make growth um and that then those interventions um with our some risk and high risk um help boost their skills as well so yes that on track plan for the grade level or class um helps to make sure that they are not sliding backwards I'm not going to ask this as a question because I know the answer but um I I think that the fast bridge probably provides a whole lot more information to instruction than say the MCA do correct which are not very thank you well Dr KK um yeah well

096uh I guess I I'm wondering um hearing the the plans if anyone feels like there's a a tension between celebrating what is working so well at ja and the the uniqueness of Ja the school Community there and the um District level but School implemented priorities um that uh are the the foundation of the Strategic plan and the the emphasis on literacy and deeper learning in particular which I think this um this group is is very excited about and I and I think uh broadly stated the community is very excited about but has that been an experience that um implementing this at the school level has has felt um in any way like a top- down exercise or inauthentic or um or or the opposite I ju just interested in the the facts whatever they are

097so yeah I can I can go a little bit with that I know that um when we were talking even through the course of last school year we were talking about ways to improve plc's already we were talking about how are we going to change our child study and our our identifying students of of need right we were seeing what ways we needed to improve reading and and even just overall continuing with that idea of relationships first which is why we get that strong positive feel so um I would say when we when we take the Pulse of the staff it's no the answer to the question is is there tension no because we just kind of feel that's that's how we need to operate at the school level and and really it's more validation

098that we're doing mtss and we're doing you can say it's deeper learning or critical thinking or Project based or throw your word in there right it's just good teaching and that's kind of what we've been doing and and that just kind of validates what we've been doing at John Adams is is right so um that's that's way I think many of us would answer that yeah and we didn't want to do too much um we're already doing restorative circles but we still wanted to have a restorative circles uh committee before we Dove a little deeper and had a goal for it same with family engagement same with mental health for students and staff and we wanted to continue that focus with staff as well so we do have subcommittees in addition to we just didn't

099want to load up too many goals we want to stick with the two main ones and then we'll build from there in years to come once we know more information so I'm very excited to see deeper learning be so Central to your work because I think especially for middle school students those components of the Mastery and the identity and the creativity in watching my own my own kids and other kids that's it's sort of the Crux of the launch and I it's important for all kids but especially for middle school kids so can you talk a little bit about um you know some examples of how you might be bringing that to uniquely for that age group as they also going through you know their own identity development and their own social emotional um work

100I I think I'll speak and and then I'll pass the mic down to those I really want to see um student work shown a lot more whether it's out in the hallways or in the classrooms so we just want to have that out there and on display for kids to be proud of and then they can look at and have conversations based on that um I know one way that we're focusing on identity already this year and that we have been for a few years our whole sixth grade team does a variety of introductory activities in my classroom we're still finishing up um All About Me presentations and the kids are so responsive to each other and raising their hands and saying oh that's my favorite book series too or that's really awesome that like

101you got to go to this place this summer and they really um engage with each other because they're all coming in from a variety of elementary schools and they're sharing their identity and other kids are connecting with their own identity and it's just a fun way um to help them build those relationships that can sometimes be very awkward at the beginning of middle school and I know that they get that experience in a lot of the sixth grade classrooms as they're coming in I can think of one thing that um the kids I have kind of been working on staff n General is accepting a compliment which is really weird to think of but the kids have a hard time with that and they're getting better just to be proud of yourself and your uniqueness

102so that's something that I think is really cool that we're going director M um I was actually surprised to see the information here and your discussion about the literacy lab there at um John Adams can you talk a little bit about I mean I my understanding is that the tier two and tier three are new to Middle School this year can you talk about how that's going and how implementing that is going so far yes we are very early stages uh so uh the the fast Bridge window just closed and um it's can be very difficult to track down the last students to get those tests done um we did it we did it um I think we had every single student um take the at least the reading and that is um almost unheard

103of um and so we're just getting all of that data um Jenna's put together an amazing spreadsheet um that has all of the students grouped by hour and their English teacher and um whether they're high risk or some risk um and then what intervention um they fast Bridge recommends um that we start with and so um putting together a schedule and then those interventions should be starting within the next week awesome and I hadn't even thought about getting all those cats together to to do that all at once yes superintendent um it's really just going back briefly to the point you made chair Nathan um about the power of the Middle School the importance and the power of the the Middle School experience when the when the research first started to sort of shake the

104world on the impact of Early Childhood it was a lot from the brain studies that showed that little infants were creating neural connections at break neck speed and what we're now seeing is that adolescence is the Second Great era of brain plasticity and that right where you are engaging these kids in deeper learning there is again this extraordinary um literal physiological rewiring again of the brain um and early adolescence is where it seems that uh we have that uh return of this incredible opportunity now none of us even in adulthood are ever doomed to not grow but there are it seems two critical periods early childhood and Adolescence for Extraordinary expansion of um brain capacity and that we know it's the kind of work you're describing with deeper learning that just gets those um brains

105firing um and so it's I appreciate the point um especially early early adolescence is just a critical place to be challenging engaging in the way that you're all doing so thank you for that amazing work we're awfully glad that our adolescence are in your capable hands it was it was amazing to be with the students today and to hear them be so um open and I mean they were better interviewers I think than the news media nothing personal um but they um they they represented ja well they spoke of Ja well and we have a lot to be proud of so thanks thank you thank [Applause] you board members are approaching 7 o'clock and we have uh two more agenda items shall we take a break or power through keep going all right I hear

106keep going all right our next agenda item is a prep for action item approval of contract for Pupil Transportation Services the board is scheduled to take action on this item at the October 17th meeting superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan I wna in introducing this item I want to say one thing for the thousands and thousands of Rochester uh family citizens that are out there watching um we know that the shortages in our transportation service this fall have been a problem we and our bus contractor for student have been been extremely focused on this for months um getting bus drivers uh fully certified and licensed takes time and so we regret the impact that it has had on a number of families I will say it has been far better here than in many other

107districts that I talk to in Minnesota and there have been some national issues part of the solution to that is making sure that we are compensating and supporting people who drive our buses adequately to trct and retain them as the board uh not only knows but as you approved uh in our previous negotiations with all of our hourly wage groups who do work for Rochester Public Schools food service maintenance clerical education sport professionals this board uh made historic investments in uh wages for those groups and it helped our bus drivers don't work for us our bus drivers work for first student and their uh compensation is is a part of a contract that is negotiated at periodic intervals so the good news is the contract proposal that we're presenting uh to you tonight is part

108of the solution the bad news is that it's a major cost increase in fact 29.5% uh over our current cost um and that is not something that we take lightly John Carlson our chief administrative officer and Jeff kappers our transportation coordinator uh got that contract increase down significantly from first students initial proposal in order to get us into a somewhat more manageable realm but this is a significant increase and we will need to factor it into all of the financial decisions that we're going to be making in the months ahead that said I do not think that we can address the problem that I just mentioned without moving in this direction so the details are in uh the board agenda item but among other points um driver wages would be increased uh as a result

109of this uh the drivers would be um uh assured of seven hours per day of work rather than five and a half hours getting closer to the full-time position that many of them have said would be appealing to them they will be fully paid for their normally scheduled hours instead of just two hours per day when there's an inclement weather day or a closure um drivers and this is not uh a provision in the contract but as a result of changes in state law um that were made at the state level in the last legislative session drivers could be eligible for um unemployment compensation in between uh over the course of the summer should they choose to apply for that that could result in $36,500 to $40,000 per year increase in their compensation um very

110importantly board members as you know you also have directed me to bring to the board by December um options for increasing the efficiency and reducing in the cost of our transportation system and so this contract would also include a provision that would allow us to renegotiate the contract should we actually uh subtract more than 5% of the equipment or services that are needed in the contract at present so there is a provision that would allow us to revisit that contract should the proposal that I I will bring you by December ultimately be one that you would take action on so I recommend um uh approval of this contract would obviously call John up to help with any more detailed questions you may have now uh as the chair noted we are not asking for Action

111at this time that would happen at the next board meeting but um are eager to hear your feedback and answer any questions Dr Cook um so why there there I'm sure that there's a whole um precedent in history that I'm I'm not uh familiar with but why is it that a a contract like this with a vendor of the district we would uh have Provisions about the uh details of the compensation for that vendors employees that would not be a term I'm gonna ask John to come up this is that would be in providing background for the board as opposed to a term of the contract so we will we're we're we're telling you why the dollars are going up because we know that if we don't uh if we aren't assured that first student

112is going to pass some of those um increased costs on to higher wages for their drivers we won't be able to address the shortage issues and so I don't believe if I'm correct the driver the wages are not a term of our contract but we are we wouldn't do this if we didn't think those drivers were going to see some direct gains in salary and other Provisions because that's obviously of Paramount importance to us you want to expand that you're right on there superintendent pel we we asked each vendor what their minimum and maximum pay range would be in the first year so we could kind of gauge it against our other hourly employees and make sure that we also thought it was sufficient enough um to attract drivers for them okay that that helps

113thanks I was a great question if I could clarify one other thing on the 36,500 that's not the amount of raise they're expecting to get that's they're all in total compensation for a year 36,000 to 40,000 in total compensation toal compensation y Dr Marvin just really quickly I was glad to see that part of the uh the contract will be that it can be renegotiated in the event that the really really complicated Transportation routes and system um if there are any additional efficiencies that can be found I think that was brilliant Mr Carson do you have the number on what what we're currently paying in total for transportation services for year so last year our total spend with first student was about $10.1 million so we're expecting a 29.5% increase to be roughly $3 million

114more of cost per year but then it should level off from there because we've put in a 3% to 5% range of increase dependent on CPI any other questions board members director you might not be able to answer this but is the um number of hours work per day plus the hourly pay is that the biggest issue with the drivers um somebody had raised a question that the reason we couldn't get drivers was because of student behavior on the buses and I was just wondering if that's really you know if that's a big piece of it or not sure I think there's multiple um things but the feedback that the contractor got from surveying people who were quitting or leaving was it came down to more wanting guaranteed number of hours that was almost or

115maybe even eight hours a day but more like a full-time job because one thought that we had was why don't you raise the wage from $25 an hour to $30 an hour but still have the 5 and a half hour day minimum they said what they're hearing is that the drivers are fine with $25 an hour they want seven hours a day of guaranteed work so you get to the same dollar spent same compensation both ways Dr M just real quick are we are we re negotiating a contract with kids on the go also they are one year off of this so I will be bringing that to you probably next year and do you have any idea kind of what we pay them per year shoot um I want to say in the2 to

116three million range okay thank you so the increase to the seven hours per day guaranteed from the 5.5 hours per day is is the work that they're doing for First Student also going to expand to fill those seven hours yes and no okay in some cases yes they might be able to pick up um maybe they can get a fourth tier in there or something else but they might be able to run a quick load of kids over to um Quarry Hill or the planetarian or something so on one end we might save a little bit of money there it's not going to probably be perfectly clean there may be some payment for some hours not work but we have them perhaps more accessible to us if we find some of those other opportunities for

117transportation that's right we're also we're kind of hoping that maybe that some of these drivers then if they can look at this as almost a full-time job would also maybe be interested in doing some of our Athletics Transportation the afternoons that we're struggling to fill too so because then you stack that on and you really do have a full-time job built there else all right as I said this will be coming back on October 17th so board members will have the opportunity to ask questions in the meantime before approval thank you Mr Carlson thanks our next item is 8.1 it's an action item approval of preliminary pay 2024 property tax levy I will read the resolution ask for a motion and second and if received we'll open the floor for information and discussion be it

118resolved by the school board of Independent School District 535 Rochester Minnesota being a school district in Olstead County and Wabasha County Minnesota that there be a proposed School tax levy upon all taxable property in said School District in an amount equal to the maximum Levy limitation provided by the Minnesota Department of Education to the Olstead County auditor and Wabasha County auditor honor before October 7 2023 and the further resolved that the payable 2024 property tax levy and 2023 2024 School District budget will be discussed and the public will be allowed time to comment on the issues of the property tax levy and School District budget at a school board special session to be scheduled on Tuesday December 12th 2023 at 6: PM in room 137 of the Edison administration building 615 7th Street Southwest Rochester

119Minnesota and be it further resolve that the final Levy will be adopted at the regular school board meeting scheduled on Tuesday December 12th 2023 at 6:00 p.m. and be it further resolved that Olstead and Wabasha County Auditors be notified of these dates and times and that notices be published as required by the commissioner of Revenue move approval second it has been moved and seconded any information to share superintendent no chair Nathan we uh did a pretty extensive overview uh for the board when this was in prep for Action so certainly be glad to ask John to take any questions that you might have but otherwise we did not prepare another presentation tonight and we are these are the final numbers um I know there was some corrections that were being made and what's reflected in

120the agenda item are the final numbers any other questions uh hearing no further discussion all in favor of the resolution say I I opposed the resolution has been approved and just to reiterate for the community um the property tax levy and the budget will be um discussed and public will be allowed time to comment on Tuesday December 12th 2023 at 6 o'clock pm here in the boardroom for our annual truth and Taxation hearing item 9.1 is our ABCD are there any items that a board member would like to bring forward for consideration on a future agenda hearing none our upcoming board meeting dates are October 10th at 5:00 pm which is a study session October 17th at 5:30 pm we have a special session on field trip fees on October 17th immediately following the special

121session we have our regular meeting on November 14th at 5:30 pm we have a regular meeting on November 21st we have a study session at 5 o' and immediately following the study session we will have a special session to discuss the student outcomes component of the superintendent evaluation and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 7:10 p.m.